DAY 219

1.08.2017; Saksakyieh-Sidon, Lebanon. The second day of marching in Lebanon. After leaving the remarkable Hezbollah controlled village we reached Sidon. The extreme hot made us slow and tired...only 18km piece took us 4,5hours. After taking some rest in air conditioned McDonnalds restaurant, we visited Syrian refugee site, and stayed there for overnight.
GPS Tracking https://www.endomondo.com/users/13828223/workouts/974274055

The sunrise view to one of the villages that are placed above the sea level. The day before was full of adventures. Despite of our initial plan to stay at the seaside (as adviced by United Kingdom Foreign Affairs Ministry) we enetered a small village, where foreigner seemed to be an unusal guest. Within half an hour whole area was alarmed and we had been forced to confess to Hezbollah about our mission. Our Lebanese friends had to leave, found themselves jeopardised. Finally we spent a night in another hotel nearby, suposedly also controlled by Hezbollah.

In Lebanon’s southern city of Saida, also known as Sidon, more than 130 refugee families take shelter in a half-built university. Some have lived there for more than five years, with most hailing from a small village near Daraa in southwestern Syria.

At one point this site was meant to be the Imam Ouzai University for Islamic Studies, an $8 million project. Now it's home to more than 1500 Syrian refugees, most of them from the same village. Hawija was the first town in the Hama governorate to hold protests after the uprising began in the southern city of Daraa in March 2011.

The university site first became a home shortly after the start of the Syrian war and is now among the biggest permanent sites housing refugees in Lebanon.Though initially little more than a shell, with the help of aid agencies it gradually became liveable.

An adult among children. Syrian refugees play in the courtyard of a four-story Ouzuai complex building in Saida, Lebanon. Its home for around 1200 Syrian refugees — most of them from the same village (on of the first displaced during the revolution).

Refugees rarely leave the complex unless they have work, saying they are harassed by local residents. They say that Lebanese see the complex as a hotbed of prostitution, drug dealing and armed activity. /AlJazeera